How I Stopped Being AFRAID of Making Mistakes in English — PODCAST

in today's lesson you'll learn many ways to unlock your speaking and stop overthinking because of a fear of making mistakes SAA and I covered different topics that go from more basic techniques you can use to deeper Reflections on our fear of being judged and how we can actually deal with it and speak English more naturally so without further Ado let's jump into episode 396 of the real life English podcast ah yeah citizens of the world this is Izzy from real life English where it is our mission to guide you and help you speak English more confidently and naturally to connect to the world and actually use your English as a bridge to your greatest life Anda I've been meaning to ask you something because we've known each other for six 5 to six years right quite a while right I was surprised actually when I reflected on that and I know that you speak like English in Ukrainian and a little bit of a few other languages like Turkish and Spanish when we went to Peru last year with the real life english team I saw you speak some words in Spanish I have this question when you're communicating in another language do you have any particular thought or mindset going on in your head that helps you release your stress and reduce your fear of making mistakes oh what an interesting question so I would say it depends on the level I'm in in a particular language so the more basic my language the more relaxed I am because I know that I'm a learner I know that I don't speak Spanish fluently coming back to our experience in Peru like I had to use Google Translate a lot so I just we're choosing keywords to somehow build a sentence to communicate what I want to a person to a Spanish speaking person that's what my goal was at that point definitely I wasn't thinking of any I don't know how to build it correctly or something the goal in my mind was to communicate a message to ask the price or direction or um say thank you or I don't know something like that but if you are talking about let's say Turkish I had like A2 in my Turkish and when I was visiting uh turkey at that point I was kind of trying to say things correctly I was paying attention to pronunciation and everything so my awareness was more alert let's say if I can say so what do you mean by more alert I think I was more observing how I speak so if we come back to Spanish it doesn't matter how I speak how many mistakes I make if I pronounce it correctly or not at that point it was important for me just to connect to a person I'm talking to with Turkish for example it's more about I know that I can connect I have a level for that already so there comes a point when I want when I'm more uh observant let's say of my language now that makes me think because when your knowledge of the language is really more at a basic level you may need to rely on like Google translate of sorts where you just like translate that word you create your own scripts for the conversation you want to have right and then you kind of try and master it a little bit so when it's time you can just reproduce it more confidently right uh that's actually something simple that I can already say if you if your knowledge is very basic create some scripts right some survival phrases but uh what if you're more at a more intermediate level with your students in English let's say what kind of recommendation would you give them to just release that fear of making mistakes okay I think and I wish I had it myself when I was speaking Turkish I think we everyone should come back to that stage of us being basic Learners because that's such a nice feeling it's just like you don't care you don't pay attention to those mistakes so I believe a great tip for intermediate Learners of English would be try to connect more try to understand a person you're talking to and be understood as well without paying so much attention to your mistakes well there are many tricks we will be discussing today right in this podcast but the first and the easiest one is um make sure uh there is this conversation the flow of convers ation like if you see that another person can understand you then yeah just relax everything's good and I don't believe that many people act like you know grammar police they want to catch every mistake you're making right so for that's that's important Point here nobody's paying so much attention I I think you are the only one who pays so much attention to your mistakes mhm yeah I think natives they don't judge your fluency by like looking at how many mistakes you're making or like your grammar your knowledge of grammar they are actually more interested in as you're saying the connection that you're having with them and just like your ability to just be focused and be in the conversation and find a way to communicate your ideas exactly exactly right you don't need to say exactly what you want to say as if you were using your native language if you find a way to paraphrase to say it differently that's already great like it already works for the flow of the conversation and if there are mistakes there you wouldn't mind so imagine you are talking to somebody from another country but in your native language like somebody's visiting you in your country you wouldn't bother like you wouldn't mind so much if they make mistakes as long as you can communicate and connect that's the true function of language connection exactly yeah remember about this goal it's not about um sounding perfectly or using perfect grammar it's connection and that's such a useful exercise I wish that everyone who's listening to this podcast today at least took away from today's episode this really like simple truth imagine yourself talking to a Foreigner Foreigner but in your native language exactly like just if you had any experience like that in your life remember how you felt did you pay attention to their mistakes no you felt grateful that a person bothered to learn your language exactly that also makes me think of a story that I heard from our producer in his podcast uh IC tea and he told me that he was in Portugal once at a hostel and he was talking to this american guy and when he started talking to him when T I started talking to him he said hey sorry for my bad English but you know and then the guy reacted saying like what are you talking about um it's great that you can speak English because we can connect if you didn't we wouldn't be able to connect at all to to communicate at all so I think we over we underestimate our capacity there a lot of people know how to speak some English and that's already amazing because it's very common to see native speakers of English who don't speak uh a languages so for them it's it's amazing that you can e let me ask you uh you use the word underestimate uh can you define it if you underestimate something or someone uh um you think that it has less value than it actually has so for example if you underestimate a task something that you need to do maybe you think that it will take less time than it actually will so it will take two hours but you think I can do it in 30 minutes while you're underestimating it it'll take more time so be aware be careful so hey guys many of you regular users of our real life English app have asked us of this new feature writing words inside the app and we finally release it for you now practicing your flash cards you will also be able to spell the words and this is very important for internalizing the words into your active vocabulary go and check it out right now something else that I was thinking about related to this topic of making mistakes uh or the fear of making mistakes is that it's sometimes a mask for a fear of being judged it's not just about the mistakes it's like huh what I actually fear is being judged but people don't recognize that so do you think you like yourself you have a fear of being judged totally I guess it's so Humane like I mean it's so human right it's um I think it comes back to really really ancient times to that very early history of humanity because we are afraid of losing faces losing our status we're afraid of being judged right and that's very personal to us that's why that's why it is a part of a problem it it kind of becomes a matter of survival but it is not it doesn't matter if you make mistakes or not in English whether your life you know uh is getting worse because of that it is not yeah I mean it could be survival of the identity right like in a way like we've progressed as society as people so now it's not just about our phys physical lives like the the Integrity of our bodies our health but it's the health of our identity it's the status as you said and how we how we are viewed so if our identity is being attacked if somebody's saying something or judging our identity as inferior or you know as negative in any way we feel that as a threat as an attack too so you know way it is survival right it is but it is so wrong I mean like sometimes a person can perceive you you as a less intelligent person if you speak bad English let's say and it is in your interest to improve it but as long as you're are a learner and we are you know talking about learning a language right now right as long as you are a learner you should embrace that mistakes are just like a natural part of a learning process you can learn from your mistakes it doesn't mean that you know during 10 during next 10 15 years you'll keep making same mistakes we're not talking about that we're talking that at some point it is okay to make mistakes embrace them as a natural part of your learning process but learn from them I think the perfect way of viewing this because there's actually a quote from Nelson Mandela that I just remembered that he said I never lose I either win or learn m so you always win if you take those opportunities for learning you you always win you always gain something I love it and it also reminded me of a clip from actress Salma Hayek I think that's how you say her name and how you pronounce it and she's Mexican right so she's not a native speaker of English and she talks about something that you said earlier that uh if people judge you you know and you feel like that well judgmentalness then there's actually a stance there is a position there is a mindset that you can apply to this let's listen to her talking if you did something wrong don't let anybody take your mistake and use it against you even if it's a mistake it belongs to you it's yours own it yes I did it throw it back in their face and don't let them take your mistake your mistake it's a valuable tool for growth and for life don't be afraid to make mistakes it's better than to do nothing and learn nothing and not evolve your mistake is your greatest opportunity and if somebody's making fun of you because you made a mistake don't go down because of it if you say so what to their face if you say yes so what they are powerless they are powerless yes I messed up tomorrow it will be another day next year will be another year it is my mistake not yours you you have your own nice yeah nice vocabulary here as well so I took note of the verb to evolve so what does it mean if you evolve you're developing right you're growing you're going from one stage to a higher or more advanced stage exactly and she said if you mess up that's a great alternative to the phrase to make mistakes yeah when you make mistakes you mess up mhm yeah it's more colloquial right and it's a phrasal verb so um you can use it more to describe a situation I also heard she say that uh when people do that to you and you say so what that's making them powerless powerless what does that mean powerless is that they can't do anything they don't have power over you so they don't control you I like that it's just like a break of pattern you usually what people expect that you find some excuses or you feel down you are humiliated but if you say to their faces so what like okay I made a mistake tomorrow is another day like you break this pattern and there is nothing for them to to to to tell you right and if you think about it as we said earlier no one is really judging you so much but if there is somebody who's judging you or if you really believe if you just like cannot accept the fact that people are not judging you you really believe that then this this becomes a shield right because it's a shield against that very belief that people are judging you but so what right it's a shield it's a defense mechanism that uh fights that uh belief but you shouldn't even have that belief right you can you should work towards not having that belief because people are not judging you the same way that you don't judge or people like uh you don't judge uh non-native speakers of your language and also if you want to play the game of being judged by how advanced you sound I would say that that's not a very good game to play uh it's not uh a good way to measure success yeah exactly it's not a competition if that's not a good game to play if that's not a good way to measure success in speaking a language then what game should you be playing instead oh that's uh I don't know if I'm able to answer this question but again coming back to the mindset uh of connection over Perfection is that why we're learning languages and why languages exist is to connect to other people to say and share what is important to you and also to get Knowledge from others so there is there it's all about this connection exchange of ideas I can think only about that yeah it's it's an interesting mental model right a good way of framing it of thinking it so you actually make it easier for yourself I really think the mindset is huge for learning languages because a lot of times it's our beliefs it's the way that we are seeing the situation that really uh dictates that really creates the situation for us so in this case I like to think of I like your description of the game by the way it's the game of connection you win the game when you connect you don't win when you speak when you sound Advanced which is like most people want to sound Advanced so they're like stressed out because they're not sounding Advanced they're like you know feeling that fear of making the mistake uh like a Grimmer mistake but again if you're playing the connection game then there are abilities that matter more in that game than the perfection game it's I think it's more about like this ener communication skills it's knowing how to start a conversation building the skills of active listening like many times yeah we're talking and um the other person is like already preparing to answer uh and like you play this pingpong game because you do the same when it's your turn to listen so those basic communication skills I I'm I'm thinking right now about our English Learners who are listening to us right now and I thought okay what if they already on their way to accepting this mindset they heard about it they are ready to accept that but then they really want to work on their mistakes and so how can they work on their mistakes I was thinking about that actually and that's that's kind of a part of a mindset as well right because we don't want we want to speak naturally we don't want to overthink to pay attention to all those mistakes and again we want to come back to that uh original idea we had with you is that connecting communicating your message not sounding perfectly not having ideal grammar and still uh as we are discussing today it's just like this moment of learning um there will come a moment when you will want uh to make less mistakes and sound right better uh because you'll be using uh more accurate words it's also about like mistakes are not just only grammar mistakes right it's like using the right word in the right moment um it's vocabulary mistakes grammar mistakes maybe pronunciation maybe pronunciation yeah thank you so it's also about pronunciation so at some point you do want to uh sound better maybe not native like but at least accurate so that your speech is clear mhm so you're understood right yes exactly um so the first step here would be just identify what are those mistakes and how to do that is either by like recording yourself we've made so many lessons on how you can improve your speakings this is one of them like recording yourself right and then just like um catching the patterns most common mistakes you making and working on them and I think it's not a problem if you when you start a conversation let's say with a native speaker if you say hey I'm I'm learning I'm still learning so if you notice anything I say that sounds confusing or that really just sounds wrong you can you can let me know that's that's cool and that'll be great because then I can learn more um so that's very different from the stance of like sorry for my bad English where you are more preoccupied you are more worried about people judging you and in this case you are welcoming the judging the evaluating that people people are evalua your English and you're using that in your favor saying like Okay so if you have something to tell me please do I'm looking forward to learning yeah you're seeking feedback exactly and then when you do learn when you uh identify those mistakes or those common patterns the things that you the mistakes normally make you definitely should take note of them yeah like if you want to remove those mistakes uh sooner rather than later yeah take note of them um you can use your phone for that and work on uh learning the the proper way to say that could be pronunciation right or vocabulary you can look up what's the ideal word for it you can ask during the conversation too like what's the best word for saying that it goes back to using scripts like a lot of times you don't know how to say something why not ask like what's the right word what's the right way to say this you could show the word in your native language if the other person knows it there's all these different ways what matters more is that you're not too concerned you know with the way they view you just use that in your favor and I asked about one last thing I asked about uh abilities uh to play this game and another ability that I think could be valuable is just like being present exercising presence mindfulness just like being there uh focusing on your breathing on just thinking about the other person like what you know what are they thinking you know what are they what do they want to say and not what I want to say what how how do I want to respond to this that's a bad way of uh being present right you're not really present you're not really listening so it's a different game right as I've been posing here I think this helps a lot this whole idea interesting it would be also awesome to reflect on why you're making those mistakes because as I mentioned earlier those may be different types of mistakes grammar vocabulary pronunciation mistakes but when you identify those weak points let's say it's nice to also figure out okay why you're doing that mistakes is it a lack of vocabulary when you are you know feel like lack of words or is it like just some gaps in your uh grammar drills I don't know so when you know when we identify those mistakes and when you uh ask yourself these questions okay why am I doing those mistakes maybe it's about all about stress maybe if you give yourself time you stent write everything you want to say maybe you're not making those mistakes so that points to uh your stress level maybe you are so stressed to start that conversation that you're making those mistakes because of stress so there is it it opens up the whole other uh area for you now you have to work not on your grammar English grammar rules yeah drilling those rules but working on how to calm down how to eliminate stress yeah you know I I have this personal approach to stress I'm not always successful with it but I think stress a lot of times is helpful because it tells us when we are dealing with something that matters to us you know so it's like an indicator of that so if you focus on the reward instead of embracing just embracing the process you'll get frustrated and you'll get uh you'll be overthinking the whole thing cu the process is the reward right the the journey is the destination the whole idea and uh there's something that I actually wrote when I was reflecting like when I was journaling about the real life way the other day uh about this that explains this idea so I wrote this when we wholeheartedly that is like we completely engage with the journey ahead of us we release ourselves from the constant worry of success or failure so like we're falling in love with the process we're seeking adventure and Adventures have challenges right so it's what you're saying about stress you can expect stress if there's no stress that means you don't care like that actually doesn't matter to you so it is a good thing and when you see stress that could be an opportunity for you to feel like I'm excited I'm not stressed or not this is this doesn't disturb me I'm just excited just like an athlete before the competition right before the match feels like that adrenaline they're excited uh so they're interpreting stress different it's kind of you're tricking your brain mhm there's a whole psychology about this by the way I can link in the description uh podcast from huberman uh huberman lab that he talks about this whole idea it was really interesting and we've talked about this before this idea of uh Adventure seeking adventure and I know you feel this way about English too so I was wondering when did you actually discover that English could be this life-changing Adventure okay I've always been curious in learning another culture through the language so even back in school and we were talking a lot about this English being just a dry subject at school it wasn't like that for me not thanks to my teacher but thanks to how I view it viewed it so the language for me was a part of a culture so I think even back in those days specifically when we were reading in our English classes when we were reading about English literature I remember like the lesson about Shakespeare and when we were reading about Shakespeare then we learned by heart the sonnets uh from Shakespeare that already was a whole new world for me it was fascinating um I believe that was connecting Lang language to a new culture that opens up a whole new world for me that was at an earlier stage of my English Journey at that point it wasn't about communication at all it was about opening a new door to a new knowledge later when it was more about communication connection it is exactly that having advantage over others to connect to anyone who also speaks English yeah that was I was at some point in my life I was working and living in Kev Kev is the capital of Ukraine so there are many many tourists visiting um so I felt like that was so cool that I can talk to anyone in any situation if they also speak English you almost feel like this Global tribe or This Global family that you can all be a part of right and you were also a member of you are a member of the fluency Circle to this day right you you still connect with uh everybody there and the other day I saw this message from a learner that I just felt you were so beautiful uh she was talking about her experience using the real life app and how that made her feel this connection I thought it was really beautiful and I saved it to just share [Music] here so her name is Beatrice I think she speaks Spanish maybe Portuguese based on the name and she said this to me this app has helped me feel more confident like you I think that learning a language is an adventure so I enjoy the trip you guys make me feel as a part of the English Global family all your topics are interesting and the app is really helping me to improve my English thank you so it is that like as soon as you start to see English as a doorway as a bridge to connecting to the world and to this family this tribe that also allows you you feel less stressed about making these mistakes because you are connected mhm exactly and that is so beautiful and I like how she adopted this mindset of English learning being a journey being an adventure when you adopt this mindset um it suddenly becomes so much more fun and cuur you become curious yeah you're like on a quest you learn something new you try something new like just like in an advent Venture just like in a game right so you play with the language so those are no longer mistakes you're making those are your ways of learning it yeah experiment with the language and yeah viewer listener if you found this interesting and you want to try the real life app you can click the link in the description uh on the real life app you can speak with other Learners you can practice speaking together in these short video calls that last from 4 to 8 minutes and you can actually get premium so you can make these calls uh have no limit so they they can last forever and you can just speak and make friends across cultures uh talking to other people and ID say that the importance of this by the way also for the topic of this conversation is that when you practice like practicing is important like people a lot of times they want to spend time like learning and uh just activating their English vocabulary pronunciation but you really need to practice like you play meaning you need to practice speaking and practice doesn't make perfect this is not about perfection remember that practice makes confident practice makes automatic just like you told me the day that you're learning how to drive the more you practice the more confident you feel so it's not about driving perfectly uh it's about driving confidently which is the same right it's what people actually want exactly I love that I love that that yeah practice is key here the more you practice the more confident you get all right CA so this is all I got but this was amazing I really I'm really glad that we've uh we've done this yeah thank you so much EAS and um I hope that the listeners the viewers of this episode will stop for a moment and just think how they approach their mistakes maybe that's another problem for them already so uh for them yeah just treat this learning process as a journey so now let's move on to talking about what we have been digging this week so CIA I heard that you have recently uh taken a trip or a tour around your own City with your daughter right so how was that um yeah by the way let's let's stop here for a moment to Define these words because personally they are confusing for me as well I would call this an Excursion right but um I believe the correct English equivalent would be a city tour a trip is when you're going somewhere maybe outside your city I stayed in my city so I believe it's a local tour or city tour because we were exploring the buildings that that belonged to one of the most famous Ukrainian Architects vladislav heski a Ukrainian architect of Polish descent and he's famous for many recognizable landmarks and especially an architectural gam located in K called the house with chimeras it is decorated with exotic animals and creatures you can see elephants rhinoceros Dolphins huge frogs uh because of hodi's passion for hunting and that was basically it we had um a 30 minute lecture learning about him and then we went outside right and we were seeing um and exploring those buildings and we were even entering those buildings that was a highlight of this tour for me because if you imagine when you go to some uh cities with great architecture like I don't know Italy Barcelona yeah in Spain most of the times you only see those buildings like um the facades of those yeah just like you see them from a distance right what was special about this tour is that we entered every building we saw uh so we could experience it from inside as well that was so special I really loved that and you know one of the unexpected things that I can connect to to our real life way actually is that when we talk that sometimes traditional English how we learn English at school in a traditional way many times it is very boring the same way here when you think of or when you hear like okay what is a lecture about an architect is it really interesting okay the dates when he like buil something and just like seeing the buildings is it really interesting but the tour guide who made this uh tour for us she made it real life way I believe because she she opened this person this architect as a human as a living human for us right because she was talking about his frustrations in life his struggles in life his passions and what I didn't know what I learned on this city tour is that his greatest passion was hunting and he went on a safari tour in Africa actually he spent a whole year in Africa and that led to him selling his own house which is one of the most famous buildings by heski in Kiev every every tourist uh visits it he had to sell this house because of the debts from that onee tour in Africa so so he was so obsessed with this passion that it brought him to those financial struggles you know it was unexpected I didn't expect that really interesting Adventure I think when you connect with the story the real story of a person that makes the whole experience of learning so much more profound right and real ultimately I think we just want to see that the person that we're talking to is also uh another person you know it's not somebody who is just a an extra like an extra in the movie an extra in the movie is that person who doesn't it's like a character it's like a character who doesn't have any names right like a okay just somebody in the background so the people in our lives shouldn't be extras right we shouldn't see them as protagonists too and they have stories and that's this is related too with the topic of our uh podcast here because if when you see people as protagonists of their own lives that makes it so much more uh real and simple for us like yeah they they maybe they feel that fear of being judged too but I don't judge them so that's all okay okay CIA so we publish a new podcast episode every week and this is free right on Spotify and on our app you can actually get the full transcript uh of this conversation and flashcards of the more advanced vocabulary that you're using so you can learn all of these advanced expressions and actually use them in your conversations and remember them forever and this is all uh free the access to this podcast but uh we need support too so how can uh Learners viewers listeners support us with this podcast yeah this is guys this is so important for our team we really enjoy uh providing this content recording this lessons for you um hopefully all of them are valuable or just like one of the learners we talked to recently said that she feels like we are her friends so we would ask our friends for help we are asking you our friends to help and support our Channel grow uh with giving us five star and good feedback on your favorite app store also commenting under this video and if you have any feedback or any suggestions for the new topics shoot us an email at hello at realife global.com or yeah share this in the comments below a yeaha so as we always say in this podcast no matter what divides us that which unites us is far greater 1 2 [Music] 3 yeah lifers have you ever felt like you had to hide something that you were afraid of being the real you probably it's one of the most courageous things I've done is coming out here at real life English we believe that no matter what divides us that which unites us is far greater so in honor of June which is pride month I am for the first time ever sharing my personal story of coming out and finding my pride so for like anyone who doesn't know because I haven't talked about it openly here I am gay and it's something that took me a very long time in my life to accept

Channel: RealLife English

Views: 46,575

Keywords: reallife english, real life english, podcast, english podcast, podcast in english, listen, listening, comprehension, practice, conversation, pronunciation, native, connected speech, english lesson, class, advanced, intermediate, fluency, fluent, english course, ingles, ingles intermediario, curso ingles, fluencia, podcast ingles, aprender ingles podcast, aprender ingles, aula ingles, conversação, vocabulary, mistakes, making mistakes, error, speaking

Id: qoe_JGAv6Yo

Length: 38min 5sec (2285 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2024